The targeting licensing and multi-year agreement aims to give GSK an exclusive license to identify novel disease modifying drug targets that have been discovered by Galapagos in its asthma and allergy program using its siRNA based adenovirus discovery technology.
Galapagos' alliance with GSK, if successful, could be highly lucrative for both parties. Over the past twenty years the number of global asthma cases has been rising and the resultant treatment industry is now worth tens of billions of dollars.
In addition to the target licensing, GSK has also entered into a three-year partnership with Galadeno, Galapagos' reagents and services division. Within this collaboration, Galadeno will use its assay development and screening expertise in combination with its SilenceSelect gene knock-down platform to discover and validate novel drug targets in multiple disease pathways.
The venture will utilise Galapagos's siRNA based adenovirus discovery technology and SilenceSelect gene knock-down platform. The SilenceSelect technology uses adenoviral-siRNA technology, which knocks-down the expression of selected genes in human cells. Genes in the drugable classes are of specific interest to the pharmaceutical industry as the proteins encoded by these genes are potential targets for small molecule intervention.
According to Galapagos, the use of human primary cell based disease models mimics the human in vivo disease pathology more accurately than cell-lines or animal cells. Targets identified through these screens are more likely to translate to true modulators of the disease pathway in vivo.
While financial details of the collaboration were not disclosed, Galapagos are understood to have received an upfront payment, research funding and are eligible for milestone payments on targets taken into further development by GSK.
Commenting on the agreement, Andrea Grant, managing director of Galadeno said: "This long term alliance with one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world is an important milestone for our recently established service unit."
One of the assays Galapagos has developed specifically for asthma and allergy targets the mast cell, one of the many cells that cause airway inflammation. Mast-cell activation also stimulates the arrival of other inflammatory cells such as eosinophils, a critical step in the development of chronic inflammation.
According to the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the European Respiratory Society, the annual cost of asthma is estimated to be $16.1 billion (€12.1 billion) in the US and $16.3 billion in the EU. An estimated 41.5 million people will be afflicted by asthma this year, including 9.5 million children.
For patients with persistent asthma, an inhaled steroid, often in combination with a long-acting bronchodilator, such as GSK's Seretide / Advair (fluticasone/salmeterol) or AstraZeneca's [AZN.L] Symbicort (budesonide/formoterol) is ideal. Combination therapies are effective because they blunt the effects of multiple mediators.
However, not all asthma mediators are inhibited by corticosteroids and the mast cell is thought to be very poorly inhibited by corticosteroids, hence people with allergic asthma can still have acute symptoms from allergen exposure. Thus, therapy directed at mast cells offers a promising way to combat asthma and allergic diseases.